


Green Plaid and Garish Sweaters

by casbuddy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, cas and dean go clothes shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 04:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1885602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casbuddy/pseuds/casbuddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas looks over at Dean, instantly narrowing his eyes at him, “Are you laughing at me?”<br/>“No,” Dean corrects, still grinning, “I’m smiling at you, there’s a difference.”<br/>“Why?” Castiel asks suspiciously. “Why are you smiling at me?”<br/>Dean shrugs, “Cause I can just imagine you wearing that, you’d look all cute- I mean,” Dean nearly chokes, “Um, you’d look good."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Plaid and Garish Sweaters

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by [i-ship-a-lot-of-ships](http://i-ship-a-lot-of-ships.tumblr.com/) on tumblr

Dean wakes up blissfully, eyes still pressed tight as he moves to the warm body next to him. Their hair gets in his nose but Dean doesn’t really care; he’s a morning cuddler, however much he’d deny it to anyone, and he’s damn straight going to cuddle the person next to him.

It isn’t until he tightens his arm around the person that he realises where he is and who’s sleeping next to him. Quick as a flash, regardless of how sleepy he feels, Dean snaps his eyes open, sighing in relief when he finds that Cas is still sleeping, naïve to Dean’s morning clinginess. Dean does note, however, that Cas’ own arm has slung itself around Dean’s waist, head burrowed into Dean’s chest. Seems like both of them are as bad as each other at platonically sharing a bed.

It had been in the second week of Cas moving into the bunker, graceless and bewildered, that he’d taken to coming to sleep in Dean’s bed. The first time when Cas had crept into his room in the middle of the night and asked, with tears brimming his eyes, whether he could stay in Dean’s room for the night, Dean had thought it would be a onetime thing. But two nights later, Cas was there again, hesitantly asking whether he could share Dean’s bed for the second time. After Dean accepting both requests, Cas now visits at least three times a week. Sometimes, he doesn’t even bother waking up Dean to ask whether it’s okay, he quite simply tucks himself into bed next to Dean quiet as a mouse.

Dean doesn’t know why Cas chooses to come to him in the middle of the night rather than Sam, but he assumes it’s something to do with the whole ‘profound bond’ shit. Truthfully, Dean is more than happy to let Cas into his bed if it offers him any comfort; hell, he knows at some times in his own life, he’s wished there to be someone he could crawl into bed with to make him feel less alone.

The only issue with the whole arrangement is that each morning, Dean finds themselves tangled up messily in each other. Now it’s not that big a deal; Dean is always one to wake up first so he can separate their limbs before Cas wakes up but still, it sends Dean into a panic each morning as he worries that somehow Cas is going to wake up first and freak the fuck out or something. Not to mention the fact that Dean is scarily way too comfortable when he wakes up in Cas’ arms. Cas is here just because he doesn’t want to be alone, because apparently having someone next to him cures him of night terrors and helps him sleep. Cas is _not_ here to have a fucking cuddle buddy.

Dean looks down at a peacefully sleeping Cas, hating the fact that his inner self is telling him to just stay snuggled up and fuck the consequences because Cas is warm and comfy and cute and… Shit, what was Dean talking about again?

Cursing quietly to himself, Dean slowly unravels his arm from around Cas and then carefully removes Cas’ arm from his own waist, settling it on Dean’s pillow instead. Cas instantly cuddles up to it, making Dean’s heart fall pathetically at the fact that Cas is just a general clinger when he’s asleep and it had been nothing to do with the fact that it was _Dean._

Blearily, Dean stumbles out of bed, nearly falling on his ass when he puts his legs through his sweatpants. While he mostly remembers to put them on before he goes to bed in case he gets a nightly visit from Cas, sometimes he forgets and is only wearing boxers and a t-shirt. Cas never seems to mind anyway, he’s too busy burrowing himself under the covers and mumbling a goodnight to care about what clothes Dean’s wearing.

With one final look to a sleepy Cas, Dean turns on his heel and goes to the bathroom, mentally yelling at himself for being such a fucking sap to a millennia old fucking ex-angel.

Unsurprisingly, he’s the second one to reach the kitchen. Sam is already there, hair looking annoyingly perfect even though he’s only just out of bed himself. All of Dean’s grumblings go out of the window though as he sees (and smells) that Sam is making breakfast for them all.

“Morning Sammy,” Dean plonks himself onto one of the dining chairs, running a hand through his hair.

“Morning,” Sam smiles at him, ever awake. Sam has this rather weird quality that no matter what time or where he is, he’ll wake up instantly with no trouble at all. Dean kind of hates him for that. While Dean isn’t as bad as Cas is in the mornings, he still has to have half an hour or so to perk up.

“Here,” Sam says with a spring in his step, placing a coffee next to Dean.

“Thanks,” Dean yawns, wrapping his hands around the warm mug.

“Making a full breakfast, you want all the trimmings?” Sam asks, going back to messing with a pan at the stove.

“Yeah,” Dean blows at his coffee, ”I’ll have it all. Make sure you do an extra egg for Cas though,” he rubs at his eyes tiredly, “He won’t want any of the rest of the shit, he’ll just want some toast to dip in his eggs.”

Sam turns to him and frowns, “I used the last three eggs.”

“Oh,” Dean shrugs, “Give Cas my egg then, I’ll just have extra of all the other shit.”

Sam gives him a look, an irritating knowing smile that Dean doesn’t even fucking understand because it’s too early in the morning, “Yeah, okay. What time do you think he’ll be up?”

“Who knows? It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s fucking lunchtime when he appears,” Dean rolls his eyes. Cas isn’t a morning person by any means. Dean has witnessed first-hand how Cas buries under covers and complains to the max about how he wants to stay in bed for a little while longer. Sometimes though, Cas will follow shortly after Dean, face scrunched up and Dean can only assume that he’s accidentally woken Cas up somehow, whether it be by making noise or the simple loss of warmth next to Cas’ side.

“He’ll get better at it,” Sam says, though he sounds unsure as places the eggs onto the plates, two on one plate for Cas. Sam reaches out and grabs the toast that’s pinged in the toaster, slathering them with butter before he puts them onto Dean’s plate.

“Thanks,” Dean accepts the plate with a smile, mouth-watering at how full it is.

Next, Sam chews on some of his own food as he waits for more bread to burn, placing them onto Cas’ rather empty looking plate. Cas isn’t much of an eater in the mornings and it doesn’t really help that he’s a bit of a picky eater too. It’s a struggle to find anything that Cas wants sometimes, Cas shaking his head at different food options with a lifted chin.

“Hope he’ll be up soon, else his food will go cold,” Sam frowns, obviously not thinking the whole breakfast thing through.

“If he’s not up in the next five minutes, I’ll go wake him up,” Dean winces at the idea of trying to wake up a sleeping Cas, “I’ll take the food with me as a peace offering,” he adds.

“Yeah, okay,” Sam grins, eyes crinkling.

Rather surprisingly, only two minutes later, Cas appears in the doorway. His hair is in its permanent bedraggled state and the Led Zepplin t-shirt that he’d borrowed from Dean is hanging more loosely off one shoulder. What isn’t surprising is how Cas stomps into the room with a scowl on his face, Sam’s grey pyjama bottoms stuck under his feet because they’re too long.

“Morning bedhead!” Dean greets him cheerfully.

Cas glares at him as he makes his way to his breakfast and with a huff, he deposits himself next to Dean at the table, tearing his toast into shreds so he can dip it into his eggs.

“Morning Cas,” Sam says, a little more carefully. Both Sam and Dean have different ways of dealing with Cas in the morning. Sam tiptoes around him and uses a nice calming voice, whilst Dean does the opposite and is arguably a little shit to him.

“Good morning,” Cas replies between a mouthful of toast. Wisely, neither Sam nor Dean complain about table manners.

“So I was thinking Cas, how about we go buy you some clothes today?” Dean asks casually. Cas has been borrowing both his and Sam’s clothes for a good while now. While Dean doesn’t mind sharing his clothes, he does think it’s about fucking time that Cas gets some clothes of his own that actually fit right.  

Instantly, Cas’ defences go up at the idea, “But I’m fine borrowing your clothes.”

“I know,” Dean reaches over and soothingly rubs Cas’ arm, wondering why Cas is so against the idea. Cas’ shoulders stay stiff but he relaxes to the touch of Dean’s palm. It had been a week into Cas’ humanity that Sam had noted that Cas always seemed to calm down whenever someone touched him comfortingly. Now, Dean knows that if Cas is upset or feeling an emotion too harshly, a simple touch to his arm or even a hug will work wonders. Strangely, he’s like a kid in that respect, craving human touch.

“But they don’t fit you Cas,” Dean adds, keeping his voice calm and steady, “You need your own clothes, clothes that you’ve picked out yourself and that actually fit your right,” he smiles and then adds, hoping it’ll soften the apparent blow, “And hey, you can still borrow our clothes if you want to.”

Cas eyes him and he asks, almost like it’s a challenge of some sorts, “Can I keep this t-shirt?”

Dean loves the t-shirt and he remembers once telling Sam that he’d never give it away and keep it for old times’ sake. Of course, when Dean had offered Cas a choice of his clothes to wear to bed, Cas had chosen the Led Zepplin t-shirt in seconds, his fingers grazing the worn material curiously.

“Yeah, sure you can buddy,” Dean squeezes Cas’ shoulder before he goes back to his breakfast, happy that he’s managed to control the situation that may have erupted into something a whole lot worse.

Sam spits out his toast as soon as Dean is finished speaking, spraying the table with gross flecks of food.

Dean pulls a disgusted face, “Jesus Sam, learn how to eat like a fucking human being.”

Dean gets a glare for that and then an epic eye roll from Sam to top it off, “Fuck you Dean.”

Dean rolls his eyes back before he asks, smiling when Cas makes a noise of contentment when he eats an egg dipped slice of toast, “So, you gonna come with us to go clothes shopping Sammy?”

Sam looks from Cas to Dean before he shakes his head, “No,” he nods his head towards the both of them, “I think you two should just go.”

Cas is too busy eating to make any conversation so it’s Dean who turns to narrow his eyes at him suspiciously, “Why?”

“Well, I’m not feeling too good so it’s probably best I stay in,” Sam says with a half shrug, Sam who looks the picture of health and is currently scoffing down a full breakfast fry up.

Dean rolls his eyes, “If you didn’t want to go clothes shopping for hours, you could have just said so instead of making up some bullshit.”

Sam only grins, “I hope you guys have fun.”

Dean ignores whatever connotations Sam is trying to hide in that sentence and instead turns his focus to Cas, patting him on the shoulder, “Eat up your breakfast, have a shower and get dressed and then we’ll get this show on the road.”

Cas’ only reply is to look over at him, his cheeks stuffed with food.

Once Cas is finally dressed and is actually acting like a human being, rather than a half dead corpse, they say their quick goodbyes to Sam who just waves at them and grins like a freaking Cheshire cat. The dude must want some time alone in the bunker or something, else Dean has no fucking clue why he seems so excited at the prospect of Cas and Dean going shopping.

Dean settles in the driver seat of the impala, turning the engine on with ease, “You can pick the music today Cas,” he offers, not really thinking much of it. He knows Cas kind of has a terrible music taste but hey, Dean’ll just have to suffer through it.

For some reason, Cas makes no effort to turn the radio on and Dean feel his concentrated gaze on him for no fucking reason.

“What?” Dean asks, driving them slowly on the dirt road as he glances at a confused Cas, “What?” he repeats when Cas continues staring.

Cas licks his lips, “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole,” he says, almost like he’s reciting it.

“Huh?” Dean wrinkles his nose, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“That’s what you said to Sam,” Castiel says, like it’s obvious. Vaguely Dean remembers him saying something like that; it does in fact sound like something he would say to his little brother. Actually, the more Dean thinks about it, the more he remembers, it had been _years_ ago, right back when they were looking for their dad.

“Wait, I said that to Sam ages ago,” Dean frowns before a more important revelation comes to him, “I said that to him years before I even met you.”

Cas shrugs, “I read all of Chuck’s books.”

Dean splutters, “Cas that’s totally- you shouldn’t have-“ he starts to say and then nearly chokes when he thinks of the most important part of all, “There’s chapters of me having sex!”

While Dean doesn’t really mind that Cas has read his inner thoughts and feelings (most of the books are from his point of view and often delve far deeper than Dean is really comfortable with) because the dude has touched his soul after all, Dean _does_ mind that Cas has read all the full frontal scenes of Dean in the books. It just sounds… _weird._ And all sorts of fucking wrong. If Cas were ever to find out about how Dean is in bed, Dean wants him to find out by actually being _in_ bed _with_ Dean, not through some skeevy book. And shit, Dean really should _not_ have thought that, _shit, fuck, shit._

“Dean,” Castiel tilts his head, completely not getting it _at all,_ “Sex is a part of human nature and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed!” Dean fights the urge to bash his own head against the steering wheel, “I just don’t want you reading about my junk, jesus fucking christ.”

“Oh,” Cas says, finally sounding like he’s understanding, “I’m sorry, I didn’t meant to invade your privacy. I read them before I knew you and I didn’t think it would bother you.”

Dean gives him a side glance, seeing the sincerity on Cas’ face. While it doesn’t make up for the fact that Cas has read all about Dean’s antics in bed, Cas’ apology does soothe it a little. He knows that Cas would never have read them if he had known it would be a problem to Dean.

“Its fine,” Dean mumbles, “Can we stop talking about it now? And pretend we never talked about it as well? I don’t want to think about that every time I see your face.”

“Okay,” Castiel agrees and to ease the awkwardness, he leans over and turns the radio on, choosing some horrible fucking rap music that makes Dean want to tear his hair out. For the rest of the car ride, Dean does his best not to complain _too_ much and he’s more than fucking horrified when he sees Cas mouthing to some of the songs. Jesus, Dean needs to teach him what good music is and stat.

As soon as they get to the clothing store, Cas instantly tenses up. Dean doesn’t blame him, the mass of clothes in front of them is kind of terrifying in a way, especially if you’re going to have to pick out a whole fucking wardrobe when you’ve never had a choice before. Even now, after years and years of hanging out on Earth, Cas still sometimes struggles with making decisions, telling Dean or Sam to decide for him. Dean often tries to turn the decision back onto Cas, let him make his own choice, because he knows how fucking important it is for Cas to have his own free will. Especially seeing as his own choice hadn’t come into the matter of him being human.

“Okay,” Dean says, grabbing one of the shopping trolleys because no way is he going to carry all of Cas’ shit around the store all day, “How about we stick with the basics first, huh? Boxers, socks, y’know, that sort of stuff.”

Cas eyes around the entire room, looking more than uncomfortable but when his gaze settles on Dean he seems to relax a little, “Okay.”

“Come on then,” Dean grins, guiding the shopping trolley around the store to the back where the underwear and pyjamas are, “So, you want boxers, right?”

Cas nods, “Yes, like the ones you have.”

At that, Dean flushes because anyone overhearing their conversation will read into that in a totally different fucking way than what Cas had intended, “Uh, okay,” he quickly grabs some plain packs, “What socks do you want?”

After a moment, Cas picks up a pair of boxers that are all patterned. He tips his head at them, a flicker of a smile on his face.

“You can have those too Cas,” Dean tells him, “Anything you want, just throw it in the trolley, it’s fine.”

Slowly, Cas drops the pack of boxers into the trolley, giving Dean a small cautious smile. After that, he turns his attention to socks, picking up several different patterned socks, ranging from ones that have simple stripes to ones that have little intricate bicycles on them.

“You’re gonna need some thick ones too, for when you have to wear boots,” Dean grabs a pack of plain boot socks, realising something, “Shit, I didn’t think, you’re going to have to get boots and shoes too.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten about shoes.”

“Maybe we can do them another day?” Dean offers because he’s got a feeling that after clothes shopping, neither of them are going to be in the mood for walking around a shoe store for hours while Cas finds shoes that perfectly fit him.

Cas perks up, “Yes, okay.”

“Okay,” Dean points over at the pyjamas, surprised this is going so easily so far, “How about pyjamas? You can finally get some that’ll fit you in the leg.”

They both shuffle over to the pyjama section, Cas instantly picking up a dark blue gingham ensemble that Dean thought he’d like. As Cas is a grump in the mornings, old man pyjamas are well suited for him, Dean thinks. He doesn’t voice that aloud though, else he’ll get a glare that, at one point, would have burned Dean into smithereens.

Cas chooses more contemporary pyjamas bottoms then, some plain grey ones, some that are blue and have stripes on. He carefully piles them up in the trolley, already looking happy with his purchases.

“What about pyjamas tops?” Dean asks.

Cas frowns, “I wear your top to bed.”

Again with the comments that imply they’re in a relationship, jeez.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugs, “But that’s got to go in the wash sometimes and then what are you going to wear?”

“Another of your tops?” Castiel squints at him.

Just the thought makes Dean go pathetically gooey inside but he knows he can’t show that to Cas, “Yeah, okay, but you still need some tops of your own. That’s the whole point of coming out today, remember?” he places a gentle hand on the small of Cas’ back, hoping that Cas won’t take badly to what Dean is saying. Either Dean’s tone or his hand seem to help Cas and, with a huff, he picks up some t-shirts that have different logos on them.

“I’m still going to keep on wearing your tops,” Cas mutters, turning his head away from Dean as he says it, as if he’s hoping that he won’t hear him.

It only makes Dean roll his eyes and gently push Cas away from the pyjamas, “Come on, let’s look around the store and see what you like, okay?”

Cas wanders aimlessly at first, touching a t-shirt or two but never actually picking them up to look at them any further. For a moment, Dean wonders whether Cas is going to find anything at all that he likes and they’re going to end up going home with some boxers and pyjamas and that’s it. Thankfully, Cas’ interest perks up when they move to another section of the store and he finds a stall of different plaid shirts.

Dean grins, nudging Cas with his elbow, “You wanna dress like a Winchester, huh?”

A frown forms on Castiel’s lips as he picks up a green plaid shirt, “According to my falsified documents, I _am_ a Winchester.”

Dean falters, “Hey, I wasn’t saying you weren’t a Winchester. You most definitely are,” he leans closer against Cas’ side, “You’ve ticked off all the boxes to make you one, trust me.”

Cas sniffs, “What boxes?”

“Well,” Dean rolls his eyes, “You’ve died,” he tries not to wince when he says it but he doesn’t quite manage it, “You helped save the world at least once,” that one makes Dean smile, though the next one makes him reach out and squeeze Cas’ shoulder to let him know that it’s not said with malice, “You’ve fucked up and made mistakes. And, the one that’s not really necessary, but it helps and I most definitely tick that box off myself,” Dean teases with a wink, “you’re a looker.”

Cas’ face scrunches up as he tilts his head at Dean, “A looker? What does that mean?”

“Uh,” Dean stumbles on his words because shit, he probably shouldn’t have admitted that part aloud, “You’re good looking.”

Cas blinks up at him, “I am?”

Dean swallows, “Come on, pick up the shirts you want and then we can go on to the next thing,“ Dean not so smoothly changes the subject. He’s not going to have an in depth conversation with Cas about how beautiful he is in a goddam clothes shop.

“Okay,” Cas murmurs, though he looks like he’s trying to hide a smile as he picks up the shirt in every single colour they have, dropping them all in the shopping trolley with a thud. After that, Cas chooses some jeans, nothing out of the ordinary. What he beelines for next though, does make Dean smile. Cas picks out a mustard yellow, knitted sweater, softly gliding his hand across the wool. It’s ugly, terribly so, which makes it totally believable that Cas would like it. Dean had also thought that Cas would have a little ‘out there’ dress sense, wearing odd combinations and the like. He’d slightly shown that when he’d borrowed Sam and Dean’s clothes but he couldn’t show it to the full; Dean and Sam’s style is pretty ordinary. But here Cas is, choosing the most garish thing on the rack.

Cas looks over at Dean, instantly narrowing his eyes at him, “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” Dean corrects, still grinning, “I’m smiling at you, there’s a difference.”

“Why?” Castiel asks, “Why are you smiling at me?”

Dean shrugs, “Cause I can just imagine you wearing that, you’d look all cute- I mean,” Dean nearly chokes, “Um, you’d look good, it would suit you,” Dean tries to correct his sentence about fifty billion times, only making him look even more guilty. Jesus, what the hell is wrong with him today? Had Sam drugged his coffee or something?

Castiel doesn’t seem perplexed at Dean’s bumbling fool act, he just smiles bashfully as he drops the sweater into the trolley, his gaze averted from Dean.

“Oh, I forgot,” Dean swiftly tries to change the subject before he can embarrass himself any further, “you need your own suit too.”

Cas stills and cocks his head, “For when we need to be FBI?”

“Keep your voice down Cas,” Dean mutters, “And yeah.”

“Okay,” Cas nods, “We’ll go to the suit section once I’m finished here.”

Once they’ve looked around the entire fucking store, they trail to the changing rooms, both of them flagging by now. Clothes shopping is tiresome, though at least it isn’t boring with Cas’ choice of clothing attire.

“Just try on a few of the things,” Dean plonks himself on one of the chairs, gesturing to the changing rooms, “So we can make sure we’ve got the right size for you.”

“Okay,” Cas mumbles, looking very much like he wants to go home, not that Dean can blame him for that.

“Here,” Dean forces himself to stand up, rooting around the shopping trolley as he picks up a few things, “Just try these on,” he passes them to a tired looking Cas, “Um, not all at once, obviously,” Dean adds, half joking, half being serious, because he can just imagine Cas coming out covered in fifty fucking pieces of clothing.

Cas snatches the remaining clothes and glares at him, “I know Dean.”

Dean gives him a smile to let him know he was joking before he drops himself back onto the chair again, waiting for Cas to come out in the first outfit. First, Cas comes out in a plain t-shirt and jeans. Unlike the borrowed clothes, these fit him snugly against his ribs and toned stomach, the jeans fitting him in the waist and hips.

“Yeah, you should get them,” Dean decides, with a perhaps _too_ enthusiastic nod.

Castiel blinks, “I should?” he asks slowly.

“Yeah, they-“ Dean swallows, “They fit you really good,” he winces at how much of a letch he sounds. Shit, he should really tone down the perviness, even if Cas doesn’t seem to notice it.

It takes Cas a while to come out next and Dean mentally prepares himself for whatever sight he’s about to see. If he’d reacted like that to a simple t-shirt and jeans, how the fuck is he going to react to all the other clothes Cas has chosen? All the preparation, however, can’t prepare him for what Cas comes out like next. He’s wearing his new FBI suit, plain black with a white shirt underneath. It’s fitted unlike the Jimmy-suit and _jesus fucking christ_ , Dean is about to pop an awkward boner in the middle of a clothing store.

“Shit,” Dean blurts out before he can stop himself.

Castiel looks at him with confused eyes before he points at his black undone skinny tie, “I don’t know how to do it properly,” he admits tiredly.

“Oh,” Dean takes in a deep breath so he’s able to stand up and walk closer to Cas without embarrassingly coming in his pants. When he reaches Cas, he slowly does up his tie, murmuring, “You’ve got to learn how to tie a tie buddy.”

Cas doesn’t say anything to that so Dean takes one more approving glance at Cas’ suit combo, “It suits you Cas,” he tries to joke, though Cas doesn’t smile, “Okay,” Dean presses his lips together, sensing that Cas’ patience seems to be wearing a little thin, “You want to try one more thing on?”

“Okay,” Cas’ shoulders deflate as he walks back into the changing room, shutting the curtain behind him harshly. It’s quiet for a little while and Dean goes back to sitting down, patting his foot on the floor restlessly as he waits. His foot stops when he hears Cas make a noise of frustration behind the curtain.

“Cas, you okay in there?” Dean asks and when he gets nothing but silence, he stands up and makes his way to the curtain, “Cas?” there’s silence yet again and Dean starts to worry, “Cas, I’m coming in.”

He walks in to find Cas trying to fiddle with all the buttons on his white shirt and pulling at the tie around his neck. More importantly, he looks close to tears.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Dean murmurs, keeping his voice soft as he brings Cas into a gentle hug, “C’mere, it’s okay.”

Cas’ arms wrap around Dean’s waist instantly, hands bunched into fists against Dean’s back, “It’s all so overwhelming Dean, I hate this.”

“Changing shirts is overwhelming?” Dean asks, trying to understand, but assuming that this is most definitely more to do than today.

“Everything Dean, _everything_ is too much. Remembering to eat and to drink, forcing myself to go to sleep even though I hate it,” he leans out and angrily rubs at his eyes with his fists, Dean’s arms still loosely around his neck, playing at the short curly strands of hair there, “Having to-“ Cas hiccups, sounding close to full on sobbing now, “Having to-“

“Hey, hey,” Dean pulls him back close to him, resting his chin on the top of Cas’ head, “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna work this out and you’re going to be fine. You’ve got me and Sammy and we’re not planning on going anywhere anytime soon.”

“It’s just-“ Cas sobs, “It’s all too much sometimes.”

“I know, I know,” Dean leans out to wipe at Cas’ wet cheeks softly with his knuckle, “But it’s going to be okay, I promise.”

Cas looks absolutely crestfallen as he shakes his head, “You can’t know that.”

“No, but I do,” Dean smiles, leaning forward to press their foreheads together, “I know how strong you are. You’re not going to let this beat you, no way. And me and Sam? We’re not going to let it beat you either,” Dean’s smile widens when Cas stops crying, bright eyes wide as he listens to Dean, “It’s going to take some time to get used to this, but I know you’re going to be okay,” Dean cups Cas’ face, “In fact, I’d bet on it.”

“You-“ Cas sniffs, voice wobbly, “You really think I’m strong enough to be human?”

“Course I do,” Dean grins, “You’re the strongest person I know. You’ve been through so much shit and you’re still standing and you’re still just as kind as you’ve always been and that right there tells me that you’re going to be badass at being human. A badass who’s grumpy in the mornings and is picky with his food and likes to wear ugly sweaters,” Dean teases, “But a badass all the same.”

Castiel blinks up at him and before Dean realises what’s happening, Cas’ lips are on his. Dean has just enough time to shut his eyes and kiss back before Cas leans out, biting his lips worriedly. Cas has nothing to be worried about though, Dean’s been waiting to do that for _weeks;_ he’s glad Cas has more courage than him.

Dean huffs against Cas’ chapped lips, “Changing clothes is overwhelming, but kissing me isn’t?”

When Cas must realise that Dean isn’t objecting to the kiss at all, his lips break out into a small smile, “No,” he shakes his head, eyes going soft, “Kissing is overwhelming, but a good overwhelming,” he explains, pressing his lips to Dean’s once more.

“Come on,” Dean murmurs, stroking Cas’ jaw with his thumbs, “How about we get out of here, buy all the shit you liked and then we can go get something to eat, huh? Burgers, anything you want,” he bumps his nose against Cas’, “Any clothes you’ve missed out today, we can come back and get them another time.”

“Okay,” Cas nods, tears forgotten as he smiles up at Dean.

“Okay, get dressed while I go buy your clothes,” Dean presses a kiss to his hair, “See you in a sec.”

Dean waits outside the changing room until Cas throws over the clothes from the store he wants to get before he drags the shopping trolley to the checkout, blatantly ignoring the price, else it’ll make him wince. By the time the shop worker has packed all of Cas’ new things, Cas is next to Dean’s side, still smiling.

They each grab a few bags each and then Dean asks, extending his hand towards Cas, “Ready to go?”

Cas reaches over and grabs it, pressing his palm tightly against Dean’s as he says with a smile, ”Yes.”


End file.
